Use ALL The Czech Railways!

I've liked trains for as long as I can remember liking anything.
For much of my childhood, I could watch them go by my bedroom
window. The National Railway Museum in York was within reach,
and was always a delight to visit. And, of course, I had a
model railway.

I've been living in the Czech Republic since 2015. When I
arrived, I was pretty burned out with travel and ready for
some nice quiet time at home. Come 2017, I slowly started to
travel again - exclusively by train, to avoid the stress of
flights and airports. In late 2017, I came across a map of
the entire Czech railway network; the map is from the Czech
Railway company (České dráhy).

I looked at it and thought: wow! Such a dense network, for a
relatively small country. Wouldn't it be fun to travel all
of it! Of course, my assumption is that this will take me a
good number of years. But, with the Czech Republic my home
for as long into the future as I care to think about, this
feels like a great way to get to know the country - including
plenty of places well off the beaten track. This page will
document my progress in my mission, largely for my own
record keeping and entertainment, but I figure at least
somebody else will find this kind of interesting too.

2017

It was only at the end of 2017 that I got the crazy idea of
trying to travel over the entire Czech railway network. Since
I had all the travel I'd done in the year readily memorable,
I figured I'd mark it on the map. Here it is:

I started out with a trip to Beroun. Since that was before
I had any intention of trying to cover the whole railway
network, I had no idea that there are at least two different
routes from Prague to Beroun. As it was, I did the same bit
of line there and back. The Prague suburbs quickly slipped
away, leaving views of the pretty surrounding countryside:

I wasn't expecting anything of Beroun station, and so was
surprised to be greeted by a large stained glass window
over the main station entrance.

Beroun is a small, but very pleasant town, to the west of
Prague. It's off the regular tourist track, has a lovely
Mexian restaurant, some bears (I only saw one, the other was
hiding in the enclosure), and a pretty river running through
it. A very nice place for a couple of nights escape.

In summer, I took the SuperCity Pendolino to Olomouc, which
heads out east through Pardubice (where they brew a very
tasty porter beer, by the way) and on to Česká Třebová; the
latter is an important junction, since the line down to Brno
branches off to the south. My train continued on east to
Olomouc, where I was heading; beyond there, it was headed
for Ostrava. Olomouc station offered up a large mural as
its most noticeable bit of decoration:

Olomouc is known for its smelly cheese and having a large
historical center. I heartily approved of both, not to
mention the Moritz microbrewery just near my hotel, where I
enjoyed some delicious, freshly brewed, beer and a great
plate of goulasch. Here's how the main square looks:

In the summer, I travelled to Switzerland by train. My trip
managed to happen exactly during the weeks when the Prague
to Linz (Austria) line was partly closed, which meant the
sleeper train was not running. Thus, I took the train down
to Vienna, and took the sleeper train from there to Zurich.
That netted me the line heading south through Brno and
Břeclav - though sadly without me actually seeing anything
of those places. Still, I'll count it.

On the way back, I took day trains and spent some time in
Austria (St Anton turns out to be a very good place to break
a journey from south Switzerland to Prague, both in terms
of being "in the middle" of the trip, while also being a
very pleasant town). Rather than going to Vienna, I changed
at Linz. Unfortunately, the line was still out of service,
so it was a bus over the border to Rybník and then the
train up to Prague. Again, I didn't see the places along
the way except from through the train window. Worse, the bus
means I missed out on the bit of line south of Rybník!

In autumn, I headed to Plzeň, starting off from Prague's
Smichov station, which is walking distance from home. That's
the same station I used for heading to Beroun; indeed, the
first stretch of the line is the very same as the one I took
to Beroun.

Plzeň gave Pilsner beer its name, and the brewery does tours
that culminate in tasting the unfiltered, unpasteurized
version of the beer. For fans of both railways and beer,
they can offer this wagon:

The craft beer scene also appears alive and well, with the
Beer Factory microbrewery making some decidedly tasty beer
that goes well with their very filling burger. Away from the
food and beer, Plzeň is a very pleasant city, and this park
was beautiful in autumn:

Plzeň station is a grand building, both outside:

And inside:

Finally, in winter, I made a trip up to the Sweden for work
reasons, taking a break in Hamburg along the way. I used
the very comfortable Prague to Hamburg train for this trip;
while there, I managed to snap a photo of such a service
arriving into Hamburg (Czech carriages, but by this point
with German locomotives):

That trip got me the line north from Prague up to the
border, with Děčín being the border station on the Czech
side and Bad Schandau on the German side. Again, it feels
like a slight cheat in that I didn't see any of the places
along the way - but it counts, and I'll be sure to vist
them in the future! And that was 2017.

2018

2018 is the first year where I know I'm going to try to cover
the entire Czech railway network, and so can start to plan
accordingly. The year is young, but as early as January I've
already got my first couple of extra lines in!

The first trip of the year was to Kladno, a town not so
far from Prague. I suspect some amount of its population
commute to Prague for work, given it's not much over 30
minutes trip on the fastest train/route. But on my way there,
I picked the scenic route instead. That started out from
Prague's Masarykovo station. It was my first visit to this
station, and - with it being named for the first president
of an independent Czechoslovakia - it felt fitting to visit
it in 2018, 100 years since Czechoslovakia was founded. I
had some moments before my train to track down the memorial
to Masaryk in the station.

Translation: Praha Masaryk Station, the oldest railway
station in Prague, built in the years 1844-1845, was
on the 8th of March 1990 renamed for President T. G.
Masaryk.

I took the train in the direction of Kralupy nad Vltavou
(Kralupy upon Vltava). The comfortable "City Elephant"
train runs next to the Vltava river for much of the way
(views are on the right).

This wasn't a new route for me, since it's the same line
that trains heading off to Dresden and Berlin follow.
However, those trains pass straight through Kralupy nad
Vltavou, which is where I had a connection. I had some
spare minutes there to survey a collection of trains bound
for assorted branch lines, before boarding the train headed
for Kladno.

This, rather noisier, diesel train groaned its way along a
mostly tree-lined route, many of the stops being request
stops, though we seemed to stop at all of them anyway.

Little more than half an hour later, it reached Kladno město,
a one-track station that lies one stop before Kladno's main
station. Kladno město is, however, closer to the center. I
would complete the last little bit of the line on the way
home.

Penzion U Admirála was just a few minutes from the station. In
fact, it was the only reasonably situated place to stay that I
could find in Kladno. Thankfully, lack of competition didn't
mean lack of quality: the studio room we had was spotlessly
clean and modern, with a comfortable bed and a fridge and
microwave - perfect for those who simply can't finish all of
their Indian food and have the rest boxed for lunch the day
after (we visited Namastaey Restaurant, and it was good). The
owners of the penzion were lovely; the bar had a lovely quiet
atmosphere on the Saturday evening even though it had a fair
number of folks in (it wasn't open on the Sunday or I'd have
been there again), and the breakfast - which seemed to be
just for the two of us on that quiet January weekend - was
ample.

Kladno didn't strike me as a place that sees a great deal of
tourists. There are some nicely decorated buildings around
the center, especially along the pedestrianized shopping
street, and its main square is pleasant. The apartment
blocks that line the road towards the center had been
painted in the different colors, which helped against the
grey sky. I was somewhat disappointed to find that the
pub of the Starokladno brewery seemed to have declared itself
a private members club. The reason could be smelled from the
door: being a private members club means they can allow
smoking. The smoke could be seen hanging in the air. I
passed. The better news was that Kladno is home to the
second branch of the La Paz Mexican restaurant that my wife
and I had so liked in Beroun, and this branch was indeed,
just as good.

The trip home was shorter than the one there. I finished up
the last 4 minutes of the line down to Kladno, and from
there hopped on a train back to Prague, this time arriving
into Praha-Bubny Vltavská - a temporary station that exists
only because a viaduct is being reconstructed, so the trains
cannot currently continue over the river. The sun was trying
to come out on the way back, but it was bitterly windy - this
being made all the more noticeable because the train from
Kladno to Prague was delayed. That did, however, offer me
chance to snap a quick photo of a retired locomotive that
had been put on the display just near the station, rather
than having to rush from one train to the other. Anyway,
that netted me the route from Kladno to Prague through
Hostivice. Not a bad start to the year.